


Mail Call

by galerian_ash



Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: Letters, Love Confessions, M/M, Pre-Canon, Protectiveness, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galerian_ash/pseuds/galerian_ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best course of action in a bad situation is to focus on one thing.</p><p>Or, in Cody's case, one person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mail Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinx_r](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinx_r/gifts).



The best thing to do in a bad situation was to focus on _one_ thing.

The week he shipped out to 'Nam, Cody had focused on drinking. A good solution, but it wasn't going to work now that he had arrived. Your life expectancy was low enough already; being drunk was just going to get you killed faster — or, worse, get the soldier next to you killed. And if the booze didn't get you, the Colonel would. That man could be plain scary in his dedication to keeping everyone alive, and he'd been given his nickname for a good reason. There was doubt in Cody's mind that he'd throw a fit if he were to discover one of his men dulling their reflexes like that.

So, seeing as how drinking was out, Cody needed something else. That something, that some _one_ , was Nick Ryder.

At first, he'd been a guy like any other. Quiet and withdrawn, almost a bit sullen — as expected of someone who'd been in country for a couple of months. It was enough time to have made friends, and to have then seen them die. He was a good pilot, capable and confident. Cody always felt a bit safer when in his helicopter, and in 'Nam, where the notion of safety was a distant memory, that mattered a great deal.

What stood out about Ryder was the fact that he never received letters, nor did he send any. Usually, somebody raced around the base, sticking his head into the hootches to inform the others that the supply bird had arrived. At that, everybody dropped what they were doing and ran, wanting to be among the first to greet the company clerk with his big bag of mail. Everybody but Ryder — he didn't even bother to come see, apparently certain that there'd be nothing for him anyway.

Cody observed this several times before deciding to do something about it.

He carefully printed Ryder's name on an envelope along with their address, and then hesitated briefly. If he wrote 'Free' in the top right corner it'd be obvious that the letter came from a fellow soldier. Then again, the postmarks would be a dead giveaway, and it wasn't as if he had any stamps. Well, at least he could skip the return address, and give it some tiny bit of mystery.

The letter itself posed another issue. What exactly was he going to write? He needed an excuse, something that explained why he was writing to Ryder.

Cody had a feeling that Ryder was a good guy. Someone with a warm heart, despite his current aloof demeanor. Turning it around, acting like Ryder was the one doing him a favor, seemed like his best bet.

So, some introductory greetings, complaining about the weather, sharing his suspicion of the cook having served rat the other day, and then: 'I don't have a whole lot of people to write to back home, so would you mind if I wrote to you? You don't have to respond or anything.' It was a good excuse.

Except it wasn't an excuse, not really. He'd told a few people at college that he was dropping out to join the army, and their reactions had been overwhelmingly negative. He'd known that they were against the war, of course; they were well educated and from rich families, so it was a given that they joined the protests. Still, he'd hoped that they would... if not outright support him, at least say something nicer than "Hope you get shot before getting to murder anyone."

He'd stopped trying after being called "baby killer" for the second time, and just left college quietly. Most of the people he knew there had been part of his and Janet's circle of friends — and, as it turned out, they really had been _Janet's_ friends. Not his.

That left his parents to write letters to. His mom, who'd been a crying mess and made him feel guilty like nothing else; and his father, who had refused to speak to him after finding out. After first saying a few choice things, that was. But Cody couldn't blame his father; he _was_ throwing away a good education and a promising future, and maybe his selfish actions really would bring about the end of the family name.

The pen went through the paper, tearing it, as he signed the name in question.

He'd intended to simply send the letter, but as he headed for the mail call he changed his mind. It usually took two weeks for a letter to reach the states, and the same amount of time for one to be delivered in Vietnam. He couldn't wait that long. They might both be dead by then. At the very least, he wanted to draw a smile from Ryder before that happened.

So he pushed his way through the crowd, right up to the company clerk. He held up the envelope and pointed to the bag, and got a careless shrug in reply. The guy didn't even pause in his work, he just kept on calling names and handing out letters and packages. Grinning, Cody dropped the envelope in the bag and hurried back to the hootch.

Ryder was still there, thankfully.

"Hey, Ryder," he said, "mail's here."

He looked up, frowning. "Yeah, so I heard," he answered. He made no move to get up.

"Coming?"

Ryder's frown deepened. "No, you go on ahead," he said, speaking slowly, as if he was talking to a particularly dimwitted person.

Well, fine. Pestering him wasn't gonna work, he apparently needed extra incentive — Cody would just have to provide him with some. Hopefully his hunch of Ryder being a good guy wasn't way off. "I'm expecting a letter," he said, trying to sound as miserable as possible, "one of those Dear John things. Guess I just didn't wanna be alone when I picked it up, you know?"

He turned back around, but didn't even get three steps away before Ryder's voice rang out. "Allen, wait." He came jogging up, giving Cody a quick pat on the back. "Let's go."

It was difficult to hold back the triumphant grin, but Cody somehow managed. "Thanks, buddy," he said instead. Ryder just nodded, and led the way.

There was no letter for him, but that didn't matter — there was more than enough pleasure to be had in seeing Ryder's surprise at receiving something. He looked at the envelope, eyebrows raised, as he flipped it around, perhaps hoping to get a hint as to the identity of the sender.

"Guess I got lucky today," Cody said, casually. "Looks like you did too, huh?"

Ryder looked up, a preoccupied expression on his face. "What? Oh. Yeah, maybe so. Gonna go read it, and see," he said.

"Sure, see you later."

He began wandering off, before stopping to glance back at Cody. "You'll be okay?"

Yep, definitely a good guy. Cody smiled and nodded, giving Ryder a little wave.

Oddly enough, he didn't really feel nervous about Ryder's reaction. The chances of him refusing Cody's request were slim to none, judging by his behavior thus far.

And true enough, when Ryder cornered him a while later, it was with a brightness in his eyes that hadn't been there before. There was even a slight smile curling the corners of his mouth — small, sure, but it held great promise.

"You're right," he mock whispered, "I do think that was rat we were given."

Cody laughed. "We should probably count ourselves blessed that we're getting meat, period."

Ryder snorted. "Probably. By the way," he said, "call me Nick."

\----

The next couple of weeks were a flurry of missions, barely leaving him any downtime at all. What little he got, was spent eating or sleeping. He'd hoped to be able to get to know Nick better, but aside from flying with him a few times, he rarely saw the guy. And trying to socialize with the pilot, as you yourself were manning an M60, wasn't exactly ideal. He caught Nick's gaze a few times, but that was pretty much it.

Still, when the company clerk arrived again, Nick followed without prompting. He came straight up to Cody's side, tilting his head in greeting. "Here's to hoping you're lucky today, too," he said.

Cody forced a smile as dread lodged in the pit of his stomach. He'd get lucky for sure, seeing as how his girlfriend didn't even _exist_ , but Nick wouldn't. He hadn't written another letter yet, and now, suddenly, time was up.

The company clerk called out his name, and he numbly took the proffered envelope. Nick moved even closer. "That it?" he asked.

"No," Cody answered, "it's from my mother." It was of course going to be signed 'Love, dad and mom' — just like all the rest had been — but Cody knew better. His father had nothing at all to do with the letters.

"That's nice," Nick mumbled. There was something sad in the way he said it, and Cody looked up to see him staring at the ground, a faraway look in his eyes.

He was trying to mentally work out the best way to breach the subject of Nick's parents, when the mail clerk raised his hands and stepped back. "Sorry, boys, that's it for this time."

A chorus of frustrated catcalls and boos immediately filled the air. But Cody couldn't care less about that. What he did care about, however, was the flash of disappointment across Nick's face.

"Hey, Nick," he began.

"You did get lucky again," Nick said, cutting him off. "I'm happy for you, man. Well, till next time — gotta go, I have a mission briefing in a few." He gave a casual salute, and hurried off.

Cody could almost hear his father, berating him. 'How about that,' he'd say, 'someone else who depended on you only to be let down. Just like your mother and I. You were supposed to finish college and get a good job; do us _proud_. Now look at you.'

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep the nausea at bay. There wasn't anything he could do to salvage the situation with his parents, but Nick — it wasn't too late there. He wasn't going to fail Nick.

He knew Nick understood and knew firsthand about the current lack of downtime, so he didn't waste any time writing about that. Just a short but heartfelt apology about not having written until now. He also took the opportunity to explain that he wasn't really expecting a Dear John letter.

Wanting to get the letter to Nick as soon as possible, Cody slipped it into his rucksack. He got odd looks from some of the other men — you didn't mess around with someone else's ruck — but that didn't matter to him a whole lot.

He didn't see Nick for two days after that. They had overlapping missions, so whenever Cody was back on base, Nick was out, and vice versa. It was enough time to start getting a bit worried.

The small, lopsided smile on Nick's face fixed all of that in the blink of an eye. They ran into each other in the mess hall, and sat down to eat together.

"Don't worry about it," Nick told him. "Write whenever you feel like it."

Cody grinned. The mystery meat du jour suddenly seemed a lot more appetizing.

\----

He wrote letters regularly after that, foregoing the mail system and just putting them in Nick's ruck or even handing them to him.

After a while their content changed. Instead of merely being friendly and cheerful he started to open up. He wasn't good with being truly honest in front of people, to actually have to _speak_ the words, but putting them down on paper? Not much of a problem — at least not when they were addressed to Nick.

Nick showed him the same amount of trust. They were doing some minor repairs on a chopper — which amounted to Nick doing the actual fixing and Cody merely handing him the tools he pointed at — when he explained the lack of letters from home. He quietly told Cody about never having known his father, how he'd split the second he found out Nick's mom was pregnant. She'd raised him all by herself, working two jobs to be able to give her son the best future she possibly could.

She had died the year before.

Realizing that there were no words that could possibly give comfort, Cody reached out and squeezed his hand.

Nick glanced down, that now-familiar small smile on his lips. "Bad move," he said, "that grease is really damn hard to get off."

Cody just squeezed harder.

\----

"Dear Nick," Nick read aloud, "if you find this letter by the time I am gone, know that it was lack of chocolate that did me in. Real chocolate, not that god-awful Tropical Bar. It was good knowing you, buddy."

"You trying to make some point here, or what?" Cody shot back, laughing.

Nick rolled his eyes. "Gee, I don't know. What do you think?"

"I think you should put that away and finish getting dressed. Our mission brief starts in three minutes, you know."

Lately they'd been going on a lot of missions together. Cody wasn't an idiot; he had a pretty good feeling that it was not just luck of the draw. Nick got along really well with Pitbull, and could very well have made an unofficial request. It wasn't something he was about to ask, though — it was one of those things he was scared of voicing, for fear that it might change.

So, a few days later, it was with surprise that he reacted to Nick volunteering to pilot a supply transport. They'd just come off flying scout patrol, and Cody had every intention of hitting the sack for a few hours. He'd figured Nick had the same idea in mind, but apparently not.

He didn't like Nick going off on his own, but at least he wouldn't be in any real danger — aside from maybe falling asleep at the controls. That knowledge was the only thing that helped him smile and offer up a carefree wave, as he wished Nick a good flight.

It took a while for him to doze off despite being so tired he could barely see straight, and even then his sleep was restless. Someone was next to his cot when he woke up, internal clock telling him he'd only been out for a couple of hours. It was Nick, putting something in his ruck.

"Nick...?" Cody asked, blinking groggily.

He looked up, grimacing. "Sorry, man, didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep, huh?"

"You done already?" A jaw-cracking yawn obscured his question, but Nick seemed to get it anyway.

"Nah, gotta go back and forth one more time."

"Why'd you volunteer, anyway?" Cody muttered, closing his eyes and burying his face in the pillow. "Don't like it when we split up."

Silence, for several long heartbeats, as he was acutely aware of Nick's gaze on him. Then, "I wanted to pick something up myself. Check your ruck when you wake up, alright? Bye, sleepyhead." The words were accompanied by Nick's hand between his shoulder blades, a fleeting touch that made him feel oddly bereft once it disappeared. 

He opened his eyes just in time to see Nick jogging out of the hootch. Fatigue was no match for curiosity, so he stretched to get rid of the last vestiges of sleep and reached for his rucksack.

There was a plastic bag inside, filled with half-melted ice. "What the hell," he said, taking it out and squinting at it. There was something else in there...

Cody opened the bag, careful to not spill water all over the place, and reached in. It was another plastic bag, inside of which was a bar of chocolate. _Real_ chocolate, the stuff he'd been desperately craving for what felt like ages now.

Unable to resist, he ate a few pieces — savoring each one by letting them melt slowly in his mouth — before he forced himself to put it back on ice. Hopefully Nick would return soon.

The remaining ice was all gone by the time he returned. By then Cody had moved the remaining chocolate, not wanting to have it floating around in lukewarm water.

"Hi!" he greeted, running up to Nick and engulfing him in a hug. "You're the best, thank you!"

"I take it you liked the chocolate?" Nick said, chuckling. His hands were warm on Cody's back.

"Are you kidding? I loved it! Best chocolate I ever had."

Nick pulled back a bit, revealing a soft smile and something akin to fondness in his eyes. "Glad to hear it, Cody."

Reluctantly, Cody broke the hug to move back to his cot. "No need to just hear it," he said, grabbing the chocolate and waving Nick over. "Here, try it yourself."

A look of surprise crossed Nick's face. "You saved some?" he asked, voice oddly toneless.

"Well, yeah," Cody said, a bit thrown by his strange reaction. Maybe he thought Cody hadn't truly appreciated it? "I really did love it," he continued, eager to reassure Nick that that wasn't the case. "I just wanted to share it with you, you know? So come on, try some."

Nick sat down on the cot, looked up at him, and _smiled_. Not like the small ones he'd given Cody before; but big and wide, showing his teeth and crinkling the corners of his eyes. It was every bit as breathtaking as Cody had suspected, way back when he'd first set out to make Nick smile.

They finished off the chocolate in silence, sitting close enough that their legs and arms were touching. By now it was mostly melted, but it still tasted better than it had before.

\----

It was supposed to have been an easy mission, merely laying suppressing fire for a medevac. Now, looking down at the wounded VC below, nothing felt easy.

The guy was dead; his body had just not understood it yet. His belly was torn open, guts hanging out and everything. Nobody would be coming for him, he'd just lie there until he bled out. It would be slow and lonely, the worst kind of death imaginable. Nothing but the scorching sun beating down on him, coupled with the insects that would soon gather for the feast.

Cody glanced over at Nick, wishing he'd look back. "Nick, what do I do?" he whispered, barely loud enough that he himself heard it over the Huey's trademark whup-whup-whup.

It wasn't as if he hadn't killed before. But never a defenseless man, never someone who was unable to even hold a weapon or pose the slightest bit of threat. He didn't know if he could handle killing someone like that.

But he wasn't sure if he could live with himself if he didn't put the VC out of his misery, either. There was no hope for him, none whatsoever. It would be mercy, pure and simple — regardless of the personal cost.

Cody aimed the M60, closed his eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

"Save it for the live ones!" the crew chief snarled.

"Yes, sir," Cody automatically responded. He felt like he was about to vomit any second.

"What kind of bleeding-heart moron would waste ammo like that?"

Cody opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out. As it turned out, he didn't need to say anything. "That's enough!" Nick yelled. He sounded furious.

The thought of Nick being disappointed in him, and angry enough to shout like that, was the final straw. He emptied the contents of his stomach, barely managing to move forward in time to do so out of the chopper.

He could hear the sound of Nick's voice over the roaring in his ears, but he couldn't decipher the actual words. "Sorry," he ground out, forcing his shaking hands to take hold of the gun again.

The rest of the mission and the flight back was spent focusing on that, shutting out everything else. He was a soldier and he would do his part — end of story.

Normally he hung around, waiting for Nick to do a quick inspection of the chopper and leave an oral report, but this time he jumped out of the chopper before it'd fully touched down. He stalked away without looking back.

The hootch was deserted. He went to his cot and lay down, facing the wall. Staring straight ahead, he waited. Waited for some sort of feeling to come, _anything_ to fill the hollow emptiness inside of him.

How long he stayed like that he didn't know. Could've been minutes or hours, before the cot dipped as Nick sat down behind him. His hand touched Cody's back, rubbing gently before moving upwards to his head. Nick's fingers combed through his hair, slow and soothing.

It was suddenly hard to breathe, and the wall in front of him was becoming strangely blurred and distorted.

"Shh, it's okay," Nick whispered. "Just let it out."

He did, desperately thankful that Nick just kept on petting his head. He didn't stop or withdraw even once.

When the worst sobbing had subsided, Nick began to talk. "You did the right thing. I know it doesn't feel that way, but I swear to you, Cody, it was. I'm so sorry you had to do it, and I wish like hell that it could've been different. But I want you to know that I'm proud of you."

Cody took a deep breath. It wasn't okay, not by a long shot, but it was starting to feel like it _could_ be.

Sitting up, he wiped his eyes before looking at Nick. "Hi," he said softly. "Want something to drink? I figured you had a bad taste in your mouth, so I got you some juice."

Cody took the glass Nick handed him, only to immediately put it down and grab his wrist instead. "What happened? You're bleeding!"

Nick glanced down, as if he was noticing the state of his knuckles for the first time. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Nick, what happened?"

"I, uh, had words with a certain crew chief." Nick gave him a wry smile, adding, "He looks worse."

"Nick..." he trailed off, not knowing what to say. Didn't even how he _felt_ about that.

"Don't be mad."

"I'm not — but you don't have to fight my battles for me. I don't want that."

Nick straightened up, mouth settling into a stubborn line. "It was my battle too, dammit. I can only hope I would've been as strong as you were, and done the same thing, had I been in your shoes. It killed me to be so useless, to just sit there while you were all torn up. And for him to go at you like that, I — I almost put the chopper down right there and then."

"I didn't realize," Cody mumbled. "I was worried you felt the same way he did, that you thought I did the wrong thing."

"What? No! No, Cody, _no_." He sounded horrified, and when Cody met his eyes there was sadness in the blue depths. "You know me better than that, don't you?"

"I do," he said, genuinely meaning it. "I wasn't thinking clearly."

"Yeah, I know," Nick said. "I tried talking to you, after you threw up, and it was like nothing I said really registered. Scared the hell out of me."

Cody took hold of Nick's battered hand again, using his fingers to carefully wipe away some of the blood. "Hurts?" he asked.

"Nah. I'm okay, see?" He waggled his fingers as if to prove that everything was still in working order.

"The cuts need to be cleaned. I'll help you patch it up, maybe we can find some ice for the swelling." He let go of Nick's hand, sighing. "As for the fight... What if you get in trouble?"

"It's fine, I won't. It was a fair fight. And he's in for a nasty surprise if he's dumb enough to go complaining to Pitbull. He'll be on our side for sure."

Cody nodded. That only left one thing for him to say. There'd been both worry and a flicker of anger over Nick's actions, sure, but deeper, and perhaps most important, was the _warmth_ he felt. Nobody had ever done anything like that for his sake, and to know that Nick had his back so completely — it was a feeling that made him more grateful and happy than he could ever put into words. Still, he had to try.

"Hey, Nick?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks." It was woefully inadequate, but this was _Nick_ — Nick would understand what he truly wanted to say.

"Any time, big guy." Nick graced him with a wide grin, and despite having just felt like he'd never smile again, Cody returned it with ease.

\----

He decided to write to Nick about his dream.

It wasn't something he did easily, revealing a part of him that was so personal, so... frighteningly _real_.

He'd told his parents, back when the idea had first taken root. His mom had been silent, but that didn't matter much, since his father had done all the talking needed. Immature and foolish, he'd said, looking at Cody with both ire and disappointment. What responsible adult wanted to live on a _boat_?

Cody had nodded, smiled in agreement, and promised never to bring it up again. He hadn't — even though the dream still held fast.

Janet had been the second time he brought it up. She responded by laughing. Oh, she'd been quick to say sorry, and Cody had smilingly accepted her apology. But the damage had been done; he never mentioned it to her again.

And now here he was, laying himself bare for a third time. Perhaps he was a really slow learner.

He stayed close while Nick read the letter, pretending to clean his boots — completely pointless, of course, considering that they'd get caked in mud again the second he stepped outside. After what felt like hours, Nick carefully folded the letter and put it away.

He stood up and came over to sit next to Cody. "Seems nice," he said, "to be your own master like that. To be able to pull up anchor and just sail out whenever you need to get away from the world."

Cody swallowed. Maybe, just maybe...

"But," Nick continued, "it also sounds a bit..."

Here it came. A bit stupid, childish, unrealistic, laughable — whatever Nick was about to say, it was gonna _hurt_. Cody wasn't sure he'd be able to fake a smile, this time.

"A bit lonely, you know?" Nick finished. "Maybe I could come with you, sometime."

And the hell of it was, it was _Nick_ who sounded nervous. Like he was the one expecting to be laughed at or berated.

Cody shifted, moving closer to Nick so that their shoulders bumped together. "Yeah, Nick, yeah, I'd love that."

Nick relaxed, leaning into the contact. His smile reached his eyes, making them sparkle like the ocean on a beautiful day, when the sun hit the water just so. Cody smiled back, happier than he could remember ever being.

After that, the dream changed. No longer was it him and his boat; no, now Nick was there, too. A constant presence, the one thing that had been missing, now making it perfect.

\----

It was a funny thing to realize, fifteen years after the fact, that you had fallen in love with a sullen-eyed young man who turned out to have the most beautiful smile in the world.

But that was what happened. Cody was visiting his mom, and somewhere between the delicate questioning about how his father was doing and taking her out to dinner, he thought of Nick. It was nothing new; he always missed Nick when they were apart.

This time, however, brought with it a sort of bone-deep weariness, like there was only so much denial and obliviousness that his body could take. Suddenly he couldn't wait even one more second — he had to get it out in the open.

Everything had started with a letter, so it was only fitting that it ended with one too. And end it _would_ , if Nick didn't feel the same way. He sat with the pen in hand, staring at the blank paper in front of him. Was that really a risk he was willing to take?

Could he afford not to?

After an hour of deliberation, the letter ended up being painfully simple. 'Nick,' he wrote, 'I love you. I'm in love with you. Have been for a very long time, I think. Whatever you want to do, however you want to play it, is fine. I leave it in your capable hands, buddy. I'd trust you with anything, you know, even this. I just had to tell you. I love you.'

He rummaged through his mom's drawers until he found a stamp, and then hit the streets. There was no one around to ask at three in the morning, so it took him a while to find a post box. When he finally did spot one he broke into a run. He more or less shoved the envelope through the slot, frantic that he was gonna chicken out at the very last minute.

Cody stood and stared at the post box for a good fifteen minutes afterwards, debating whether or not he could break it open and get the letter back.

He walked home, guts churning.

\----

Two days later, Cody returned home with a plan. It had taken some quick thinking with his mom to come up with a good excuse for why he had to return early, as well as a frustrating phone call with the airline. He was out several hundred dollars since his original flight couldn't be rebooked, and the new ticket he'd bought had been for a cramped seat on a jam-packed plane. His legs were sore, he hadn't slept since he'd mailed that damn letter, and he was feeling high-strung in a way he hadn't since the war.

But it'd all be worth it if he could just get back home before Nick received the letter.

He'd simply go on the boat, say a quick hi to the guys, and then — since he was up and about anyway — offer to go get the mail. Crisis averted.

Nick came up from the stateroom as he entered the boat. "Did you forget something, Murray?" he asked, mouth shutting with an audible snap when he spotted Cody. "You're back early," he said, standing frozen halfway up the stairs.

"Yeah, you know, my mom had some things to do — what's that about Murray?" he blurted, trying to cover up the lousy excuse.

Nick looked at his feet, shrugging. "Oh, you just missed him. He was gonna go visit a friend for a few days."

That was odd, considering that they'd made plans to take the Riptide out to sea, do some fishing, when Cody returned. No matter, he had more important things to focus on. "I'll go pick up the mail," he said, making a show of stretching. "Need to move a bit after sitting still so long."

Nick finally looked up, shaking his head. "Too late."

Cody stared at Nick, speechless. What the hell was he supposed to say? 'Did you by any chance happen to get a love letter from yours truly?' Yeah, that'd be real smooth.

Slowly, Nick walked up the rest of the stairs and came to stand in front of him. "Are you alright?"

He didn't seem disgusted, or upset, or even angry — just slightly worried. Cody took a deep breath, feeling shaky with relief. It probably had yet to be delivered, which meant he hadn't blown it after all; hadn't screwed up the best thing in his life.

"This is about the letter, isn't it?"

Once, Cody had been thrown through a window. It had left him disoriented to the point of feeling like the world was dropping out from under him, even though he'd been lying prone on the ground. This felt just like that.

Nick crossed his arms, jaw clenching. His eyes were shuttered as well, rounding out the picture. Everything about him screamed of defensiveness — which made no sense. "You came home early to intercept the letter," he said. "You thought better of it, is that it? Or maybe you were drunk, and didn't even mean it in the first place."

"Say what? No — I mean, yes, but no," Cody cut himself off, groaning. "No, I wasn't drunk. Yes, I meant it. And yes, I did come home early for that reason."

Nick dropped his arms. He looked utterly vulnerable for a second, then tilted his head and regarded Cody with a frown. "Why?"

Annoyance briefly overshadowed the fear. "Gee, Nick, you know, I think that should be fairly obvious, unless my letter caused you to have an epiphany."

"No," Nick replied, "there was no sudden revelation as to my feelings for you."

Cody closed his eyes. Well then. That was it, wasn't it? The touch of Nick's fingers again his face made his eyes snap open, heart racing.

"Stop selling yourself short, will you?" Nick murmured. His hand moved to the back of Cody's neck, pulling him in close. Their lips met, a brief and chaste contact, leaving him aching for more.

"I didn't need to have an epiphany 'cause this is something I've known for the last fifteen years."

It took a while for Nick's words to filter through, partly because he went for another kiss as soon as the words had left his lips, leaving Cody feeling lightheaded.

"I never knew," he said, panting. "I'm sorry — I wish I'd realized how I felt sooner. Why didn't you ever say something?"

"I didn't think there was the slightest chance you could feel the same way. Didn't want to ruin everything we had," Nick answered, voice shaking.

Cody pressed a soft kiss to Nick's lips, wanting to remove the glimpse of sadness. "I was scared of that, too. But I — I had to tell you."

Nick gave him a fond smile. "You always were brave. Doing the right thing, no matter what. It's one of the things I love the most about you."

"...Say that again."

"What?" Nick replied, smile turning into a teasing grin. "That you're brave?"

Cody growled, dipping his head to take a rough kiss before licking his way along Nick's jaw. Nick yielded with a low moan, exposing his throat. Cody nipped on his Adam's apple before moving even lower, sucking a hickey onto one of his collarbones.

And that was as far as Nick's shirt was unbuttoned. He wanted to tear it open, move even lower, but he forced himself to step back. "No," he said hoarsely, "not that."

Nick's eyes slowly focused on him. He blinked a couple of times, clearly trying to understand why Cody had stopped. "Huh?"

"Say it again."

Nick reached for him, pulling him in close. His hands stroked Cody's back, tender and warm. "I love you, Cody. I loved you in 'Nam, I love you here, and I'll continue loving you wherever we may go."

He hugged Nick back, hard enough that his arms ached. "I love you too," he whispered. "So much, Nick."

They stood like that for a long while, before Nick broke the silence. "You know, I asked Murray to take a trip in the hopes that we could catch up on lost time. But if you break my ribs — and you're about to, buddy — that ain't gonna happen."

Cody laughed, letting go but staying right where he was. "You did that?"

"Wanted to be alone with you. I was planning on cooking a nice dinner, was gonna make your favorite sauce and everything. You spoiled all that by returning early, sorry."

"That's okay," Cody said, leaning in for another kiss, "I have everything I need right here."


End file.
